Air quality · Citizen science
From public data to citizen-owned instruments.
A long-running effort to make environmental measurements around Taranto easier to understand, investigate and use, followed by a new experiment that brings the same philosophy all the way to the physical sensor.
Turn public files into a public instrument
I use Omniscope to combine and visualise ARPA Puglia measurements, publishing an interactive dashboard where citizens can compare pollutants, stations, periods and the underlying observations.
Make monitoring operational
The history expands, an Italian edition is added, and the project grows into hourly benzene monitoring with automated public alerts linking back to interactive evidence.
Support civic analysis
Work with PeaceLink and local advocates develops into longer historical analyses, including more than 80,000 hourly benzene measurements and evidence presented during an Italian Senate hearing.
Democratise the instrument
I customise an open AirGradient monitor so it can send measurements directly and privately to an Omniscope workflow, with no vendor cloud, middleware, home server or inbound router port.
The evidence
Peaks need attention. History gives them meaning.
Read the story
From seven years of monitoring to one very geeky sensor.
AirGradient Directly to Omniscope
The complete build: an Android controller, custom AirGradient firmware and a direct authenticated HTTPS pipeline into an Omniscope workflow.
From Monitoring Taranto to Building Citizen-Owned Air-Quality Instruments
How a public dashboard for Taranto evolved into automated benzene alerts, civic evidence and an open air-quality monitor sending directly to Omniscope.
Public record
The work travelled beyond the dashboard.
Environmental data in the classroom
Alessandro Marescotti documents students using the Omniscope dashboard to compare ARPA monitoring data and describes it as environmental data democratisation.
Analysis enters the institutional record
PeaceLink’s official hearing slides credit Antonio for data analysis and processing with Omniscope, and acknowledge Annamaria Moschetti among the collaborators.
Eleven years of benzene measurements
More than 80,000 hourly observations reveal that 32 of the 63 readings over 27 µg/m³ occurred in 2023 alone.
Monitoring from below
PeaceLink’s account of the dashboard, public alerts and the role of accessible environmental evidence.
Archive in progress
I am assembling the fuller record: public posts and alerts, work supporting Alessandro Marescotti, PeaceLink and citizens of Taranto and Tamburi, exchanges with scientists and doctors including Annamaria Moschetti, and the Senate hearing where analysis produced in Omniscope was presented. This first edition establishes the spine; the documented archive will deepen it.
Open implementation
The new sensor experiment is documented in public repositories so other people can inspect it, adapt it and build their own path from an open monitor to private historical analysis.